Thursday, 14 March 2013

Fra Bartolomeo and Raphael.

In his analysis of the Lucca altarpiece, Wind identified a
fusion of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. The Lucca altarpiece has rightly been
connected with Raphael’s development, especially the symbolic cluster of
religion and meteorology which influenced Raphael’s own altarpieces of his
Roman years.[1]Yet, before that, Fra Bart had taken note of
Raphael’s Florentine works, and it seems right for Freedberg to see Raphael’s Madonna
del Baldacchino as the origin of Fra Bart’s classical cinquecento style.[2]
After completing this altarpiece Raphael left town for Rome, and Fra Bart- now
head of his own workshop- was established in the style he had formed from both
Leonardo and Raphael, a formula he used to successfully produce unspectacular
devotional altarpieces for Florentine clients. After Fra Bart visited Rome in
1514, on his return his conversation with Raphael continued, with the
production of the Madonna della Misericordia which tries to match the
language of Raphael’s Roman frescoes to altarpieces with awkward results. Highly
dramatic, even rhetorical, it cannot carry the burden of its own ambitions and
falls short of its aims. Instead of Roman painting improving Fra Bart’s art, it
had shown its shortcomings. Raphael was now speaking a language that Fra Bart struggled
to understand yet alone translate.